


Devolution ...Or, Three Times Topher Played the Hero, and One Time he Didn't

by hauntedd



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Angst, Conscience, Evolution, F/M, Guilt, Mind Control, Tentacles, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:34:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedd/pseuds/hauntedd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's not a prince on a white steed, but he does help people, and maybe that's enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devolution ...Or, Three Times Topher Played the Hero, and One Time he Didn't

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zoe (NutterZoi)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NutterZoi/gifts).



> Haha, this was supposed to be a treat, but I did it after the deadline, so I lose.
> 
> Note: Spoilers through 2x04, Some dialogue borrowed from Haunted, Omega, and Belonging.

He plans his birthday party this year to align with Sierra's schedule. The newness of it is strange and different and exciting, but he feels connected to her, in a way he hasn't felt since Jenny. She's the princess that he can actually kiss before midnight, and he has no qualms about the embraces of ghosts he programs into the machines, still warm and alive, at least for a while, no matter how much of a hand he's had in their creation.

She's dressed in the best outfit he can find in a closet filled with dominatrix whips and haute couture. But what he comes up with, in secret, at night when he's alone with his _toys_ after the concerns of men with far more of a conscience than he have grown quiet, still manages to highlight the sinuous curves of Sierra's body. He glances back at her for a moment, noting, not for the first time, that she looks somewhat otherworldly, beautiful, yet not traditionally so.

He waits, faking work to throw off Boyd and anyone else that might be interested in his affairs, and reexamines the engagement, with all the contained eagerness of a kid on Christmas morning. It's an amalgamation of all the hot gamer girls he's seen roaming around cons for years, aloof and deadly, yet completely unaware of their affect on him. If he weren't so involved in a Big Government Conspiracy, he might even talk to one, but, he muses, as the pulsing lights force Sierra to lurch upward, _why put up with the possibility of rejection when you can avoid it entirely?_

He lets out a cheer as her eyes snap open. Topher's learned through practice that you can tell if an imprint goes correctly in that first glance. She sits up, no longer Sierra, but Kat, and while he'd considered Lisa, at least for a moment, she's more perfect than even the amateurs of _Weird Science_ could come up with, because he had a hand in her creation.

"Tell me you got Speed Force 3?" She questions, her eyes full of mischief and danger and he smiles as she hops up from the chair full of sass and splendor.

"And downloaded the bonus maps," he supplies in return, then leads her through the lab to his makeshift lounge area, where an Xbox is set up and raring to go. "Pizza on its way, beer in the fridge."

"Dude!" She exclaims and gives him a high five, her hand smooth against his own. Whatever lotion they give the dolls here is good quality stuff, and he thinks that Jenny would have liked it, if she were still around.

They banter about his new game idea, and while he can sense what she might say in response to all of these conversations, she still manages to surprise him. He knew this all along, he had programmed her to be just as smart as he is, though much cooler and hotter.

Definitely hotter.

She flops onto the battered couch with graceful ease and brushes his shoulder while taking the proffered controller from him with a grin. "Get ready to get your ass kicked and possibly lose an eye," she teases then clink her Xbox controller against his own, the geek equivalent of cheers, or at least, _nos morituri te salutamus._

They play for a while, until it gets boring and the pizza high has worn off. She's won nearly every round, the pitching and heaving of her chest and the inviting smile, lingering on her face and not at all like she's wearing a mask that is not her own, serve as a welcome distraction from domination.

The banter continues and he feels freer than he has in months. The house is going awry, needs needed to be met and spies have been found and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the puzzle wrapped up in an enigma that Echo presents. She may be some sort of semi-self-aware warrior-savior like Xena or Cthulu wrapped up in a shiny, sexy, doll-like package.

He doesn't really think about these things that much, he's just the programmer, not the management.

She asks to play with the _sleepies_ and Topher cringes as the reality of just what he's doing hits him. But it's momentary and he's comforted by the knowledge that this is much better than the alternative would have been. He saved her life, fixed schizophrenia, and all Priya had to do in return was give away five years of it.

Though he's never been crazy, not really, he thinks it's probably a fair exchange, at least compared to how they normally do things.

He tosses the football across the balcony, letting it soar and watching as her shirt inches upward as she reaches to catch it, proposing an alternative that is both geeky and is more likely to ensure that he keeps his job, which is important, since he's surely enjoying the perks. "How about we play a game of chess?"

She cocks the football backward and releases, her mind running a mile a minute with thoughts that he could probably make sense of, if he wanted, but he doesn't, preferring the spontaneity of his fantasy girl. "A variant? Flying chess?"

He catches the ball, amused by the way that she throws the ball, and thinks that _throwing like a girl_ has never been more appropriate, and remembers the bottle of vodka in the lab. "Okay, but how about every time you lose a piece you drink!"

She agrees and they make they're way back to the lab, he's got the chess board out and the pieces are in a row and she's the first one to lose a piece. He offers her a shot and she's doing this sexy, sexy thing with her hands as she cups the shot glass and slides the clear liquid down her throat, not even bothering to cringe, then flips it over with determination and narrow eyes.

The game's just begun.

Somewhere along the line, chess gets boring, and impossible. The pieces have all blurred together and the rules have all kind of muddled, so he suggests laser-tag, and her excitement is palpable and infectious.

She straps on her gear and he smirks in response. He's had this stuff for years and no one to use it with. It's been the way that his life has gone, his intelligence is intimidating for most people, and most people who are smart enough are also serious. So he's resorted to programming dolls. Not that he minds, they're people too, they just have the benefit of being programmed to respond in ways that he enjoys.

A lot.

They play for a while, rolling and shooting and racing through the house, which is quiet as all of the other dolls are either on overnight engagements or asleep, and he feels like a kid on Christmas Morning. Cinderella doesn't have to turn back into a pumpkin til 6 a.m., when Boyd comes back into the house, always on time and never late or early.

They've resolved to play eleven rounds, which would seem excessive if he weren't drunk and high on the pure emotion that flitters throughout her movements.

She nails a kill shot from her spot in the art area, giggling and grinning as she does a victory dance amongst the easels that stand at attention even in the shadows, empty and abandoned. They're tied up again, 5-all, and it's the final round.

He decides to make his move and tackles her with all the playful force that he can muster, forcing the easels to topple over with them. She lies underneath him, all smiles and squirming sexily, as he has his gun pointed at her chest.

"Oh, Topher, save me," she breathes, her voice dripping lower and her eyes darkening as she meets his gaze. This was never planned, it's an unexpected variable that he couldn't predict when creating the imprint, but he doesn't care as he becomes painfully aware of his own man reaction.

She presses her lips against his, warm and supple and filled with promises of things yet to come. His gun slides to the floor, the game forgotten as she snakes a hand behind his back, in an attempt to remove his vest.

He's in heaven as she meets his mouth with her own, passionate and unbridled and their tongues begin to meet, undulating and pushing and pulling as she shivers underneath him, her breath hot on his cheek.

A loud, ripping alarm breaks him from his thoughts and he realizes that his vest is lighting up in pulsing shades of red. Her dark eyes meet his and dance playfully as he feels her mouth spread into a grin.

He feels betrayed and pushes off of her slightly, sitting up and still in shock that he's lost this round due to her sexy sexiness. Maybe he is just a man, after all. "That," he breathes, hard and fast and not at all calm, "Seems hardly fair."

"Yeah, but you did save me. And this time, to the loser goes all the spoils. After all, you are my hero," she whispers, discarding her top and pulling him down against her for another kiss while making quick work of his shirt.

As the clothes surround them, and she's doing that thing with her tongue, Topher realizes that this very well might be the best birthday ever.

~*~

He knows this is going to end badly the second that the order comes down to imprint Dominic onto Victor. Once the rush of excitement fades and he remains with Ivy, trying to grab all that he needs from the imprint wall as he waits for Victor to come up the stairs with DeWitt, Boyd and Saunders, Topher can just sense the dread building in his stomach.

As the lights paint shadows on the walls and he catches the light reflected off of the good doctor's face, it builds like insidious rumors among teenage girls, quick and fast and crippling. But he says nothing, this is his _job_, and when Vic—no, Laurence, comes to, it all disappears for a moment, then two, until he realizes that he's still in the Attic.

However, nothing is as frightening as when he refers to Saunders by her real name, well, more real name, _Whiskey_, and he lets out a breath he doesn't know he's holding when she shrugs it off with a smile, well, the closest thing she has to a smile, after Alpha's handiwork.

The rest of the engagements go by in a blur, Sierra as an FBI forensics specialist, with an extra super awesome layer of sexy geek – he's never truly gotten over his birthday, Echo coming back from the _Best. Idea. Ever._, or at least _Best. Idea. Of. Today._, and while Alpha is on the lose and wreaking havoc, it's in Tucson, which he now knows is where the Dollhouse HQ is located. Adelle suggested as much, without ever confirming anything at all.

Though that all changes when he gets tasered by tall, dark and mysterious, who is hanging around with someone who looks a hell of a lot like Alpha. Of course, he learns later, after he comes to, that it is _Alpha_ and he's come for his number one gal, and there is no way to find her.

Topher feels dark eyes burning into his skin and a hint of familiarity shakes him to his core. Inhaling, he turns to see Saunders leaning against the doorway, dazed and confused and full of questions that are likely to remain unanswered.

After a moment, she states, 'He asked me if I always wanted to be a doctor."

There's a layer of subtext there that he's not even going to begin to touch and he's struck by the ghosts of Jenny that remain, if he looks close enough from an angle that is slightly askew and buried under years of pain and guilt.

Instead he paints an uncomfortable smirk on his face, trying his best to look unaffected by her words. "Heh, well, who can fathom the mind of a crazy person?"

"The one who made him crazy, maybe," she answers and turns away, still as stunned and shocked as she was a few moments ago, which is far better than she would be if she knew the truth.

However, the sting is hard to erase, though he tries to forget about it and focus on the mission. Alpha is still out there and Echo is with him, and he has to focus on that. Je—Saunders is safe, both mentally and physically, and that's what matters.

Then Adelle brings him Tall, Dark and Judge-y, who is, as far as he's concerned, at fault for all of this. After a bunch of nastiness, he decides that the best way to twist the knife is to force him to interact with November, knowing full well that he's slept with her when she was sweet, innocent and deadly Mellie, both before and after he found out the truth. He can read the signs, and he knows people, and the best way to deal with someone like Paul is to

Jenny wouldn't approve, but she isn't here to judge. She's a lot like Paul, it seems, who is like a male version of Saunders, well, Saunders 2.0, sanctimonious and self-righteous.

After they leave, he returns to his search, which is fruitless at best until the phone call comes in and he realizes that he hasn't been looking in the right places after all. The dread grows as the words continue and he remembers the imprint from hell, one of the few that he's actually bothered to flag. He didn't like it from the start and was pissed that Adelle was using the actives she was using to execute the request. He's always been protective of Whiskey and when he realizes Alpha's modus operandi, Topher demands the imprint without another word.

Sliding it into the spot, the machine he's using reveals the truth behind it all and he blanches, this is _so_ not going to end well. "Whiskey. He's using an old Whiskey imprint."

Later, in the dark of night, when things begin to calm and the world rights itself again, he catches her on his balcony, overlooking the actives below, statuesque and silent and striking with her back toward him. He doesn't say anything for a moment, then two, and finally decides now is as good a time as any. He hates dealing with her, she's a reminder of so many things, not all of them good. It's not like _before_ when Alpha was just another designation among the actives and she was number one.

"Dr. Saunders?"

She doesn't move at first, continuing to watch the actives mill about below. He's compared them to bison before and he still appreciates the truth behind his words. Finally, she inhales and says, "I think you gave me more computer skills than would be required by a medical doctor."

The words seem out of place an he doesn't know what to make of them, until he catches the computer screen and sees her face, smiling and unscarred staring back at him, a ghost of a former life. He remembers this photo well, it's one of the few that she let him take of her _before_ when she was larger than life and the only dollhouse she knew was the one that their parents got her on her sixth birthday.

There's no way to respond, despite the millions of words running through his head, reactions firing synapse after synapse and the truth is he can't even say he's sorry, though he is, because this was the better alternative, at least it was, before Alpha.

"It was very easy for me to hack your system."

That, he doesn't doubt. The skills were always there, intentional and precise. A part of him wanted her to find out, to recognize that he's done everything and more to **save** her, but looking at her now, empty and confused, a shell of the woman he made her, he's not so sure this was a good idea.

She turns to face him; shadows dancing across her face, highlighting her scars in ways that actually make her seem beautiful and grotesque at the same time.

Jenny was just beautiful. And lively and fun and so many things that Saunders isn't, but at least she's still breathing. Jenny wasn't, at least not on her own, and not until he worked his magic on her, with help from Rossum and the Dollhouse. Of course, she became Whiskey after that. At least for a while.

He's not sure that he should tell her that. She's a medical doctor, now, too, and far more ethical than he ever is on a good day.

"I'm curious."

"About?" He asks, hesitant and unsure of her next bold move. This isn't really in Saunders' parameters, but he guesses that she's not just Saunders at the moment, and he's not really sure what exactly is going to happen next. As long as it doesn't involve shiny, pointy scalpels and his face, he guesses it'll be okay. Maybe. Probably. Though, it'd kind of be like a unifying Brink trait. But, he wouldn't look good with scars; he's not a badass like the Highlander or Chuck Norris.

She makes her way up the stairs, slow and with precision. "I guess I understand why they wouldn't want to waste an investment, and I suppose why hire a new physician when you can just imprint the broken doll, but why did you decide it was so important for me to hate you?"

He meets her gaze then, blue on brown, and holds it for a second, then two, but doesn't say a word. He has no way to respond to that. It was completely unintentional, he'd simply programmed her to be everything he wasn't, but in a different way from how Jenny was everything he wasn't, and set her loose. Adelle had been incredibly impressed with his handiwork and quick thinking.

She'd given him a bonus afterward, and he'd used it to buy the laser-tag equipment. It only took him another year to actually use it.

She tilts her head and adds, "I think that's strange." Then begins to walk away, leaving a trail of unanswered and unrealized questions in her wake.

He pauses, catching the screen staring back at him mockingly from the corner of his eye, which blurs slightly as a single tear begins to form and he swallows, hard, to force it down. He isn't sure what to say, but the indignation starts to build and he finally states, "You didn't open it."

"No," she agrees, not turning to face him. He should feel hurt, but all Topher can feel is relief.

"Aren't you curious to see who you really are?" He asks, not sure he wants to hear the answer to his question. Both answers have serious implications, ones that he's truly not ready for, but this has forced his hand, and he's dealing with past and present and potentially future in one fell swoop.

She slowly turns her head over her shoulder, staring at him with eyes that are heavy with the knowledge of knowing too much, and yet nothing at all. He knows that look, he's seen it before reflected back at him in the mirror, in the weeks and months after the accident, when Jenny was motionless and hooked up on wires in a hospital bed, in the time before she was Whiskey and after she was his sister, when she was simply a body, empty and broken and hanging on the precipice of life and death. "

I know who I am," she states with conviction and while he doubts the validity of her claims, he doesn't question her, he wouldn't dare, and she leaves him alone with her thoughts.

He remembers the experiment, a latch ditch effort, well orchestrated and covert, after his parents had finally come to terms with it all and signed the D.N. R., which they told him not in words, but by handing him back the octopus-shaped stuffed animal he'd bought her from the gift shop so that she'd laugh when she woke up. He couldn't stand it, Jenny was his older sister, one of the few people that even tried to get him, and he had the means to maybe save her. He knew more about the human brain than anyone and perhaps with active architecture it might be possible to do something to bring her back. Her medulla oblongata was functional, sort of, though the rest was damaged, and it was worth a shot.

It had far exceeded his expectations. Rossum had funded the project, Adelle had been wary, but willing to allow him the opportunity, and when it panned out perfectly, they were all pleased at the most recent addition to the house. He'd signed her contract for her, and it was just supposed to be five years.

Then Alpha came and shot that to hell.

But the fact of the matter remained. He still _saved her_, he did the right thing. Even if Jenny would never be able to appreciate it in the end.

Later after he fixes Echo and he's close to tears as the guilt finally begins to settle and swallow him whole, she comes and places her hand on his heart, and he's shocked to find it still beating, pumping and that it hasn't shrunk to nothingness. Sometimes it's about the hard choices, he realizes, and despite it all, he's still right.

~*~

Echo tends to be the start of everything, and when she stalks his lab like a silent, but determined, warrior, trying to show him a picture, he shrugs it off as some unnecessary interaction. Sometimes, being the man who does the treatments causes the actives to hang around, eager and hoping to be picked. They're programmed to like them, though Echo's never been one of _those_ actives.

She's always been something else entirely.

They talk about a bad man and he makes some smart-ass comment in response to her doll-speak, childlike and filled with intent. _Sierra hates the bad man_, yeah, well, that's not exactly helpful, Echo. Of course, he can't tell her that, he has to play nice with the dolls, they don't appreciate sarcasm, they're not programmed that way.

Then after a moment, she meets his gaze and he catches the hint of something deeper lingering under the surface. "You're not looking hard enough," she states and he winces as her words hit him in a way that he doesn't expect. She's not supposed to notice these things about people, but she's been different all along, especially after Alpha.

She turns to walk away and adds, "You never do." He can hear the ghost of Je—Saunders in her voice and he mulls it over. Maybe there is something there.

So he asks Boyd for more details, prodding and questioning and acting unlike himself in these matters. Normally, he shrugs this stuff off as unnecessary, but this is _Sierra_ and he hasn't felt as tied to a doll since Whiskey. Maybe he does have a god-complex, deep down.

Not that it's a bad thing. He does make people out of air and put them into bodies. Not many can say that.

Boyd laughs at him, amused and knowing, and Topher feels uncomfortable under the older man's gaze. "That's funny that I have a hunch?"

"No, that it's bothering you," Boyd replies and Topher shrugs it off as another case of the generational divide that exists in this place. The only other person his age is Ivy, and, well, she isn't fun at all. Though she does provide good snacks on demand. Really, really good snacks.

He asks about the engagements and gets nowhere, except for more silent judging and piles of more unhelpful information. Sometimes, he wonders about Boyd. Dominic would have thought he was an idiot and this was pointless, but he would have probably pointed him in the right direction an hour ago.

Finally, when the unasked questions grow too oppressive, he explains, "I helped Sierra you know. She was a paranoid schizophrenic when she came here, psychotic. I helped her."

It kills him when Boyd's only reply is that he didn't ask. This is why he doesn't share with people, when he's having a moment; the other one is just… doing the job. Then again, he hasn't had a moment since Jenny was alive and kicking and still Jenny, so maybe he's just out of practice.

Finally he gets a lead and Boyd hands him Sierra's file without a word, leaving him alone to piece together the mysteries of the black paint and her psyche. The paintings are all strewn about the desk, variations on a theme, and when that doesn't work, he reads Saunders' reports. It takes a while, but finally he comes in contact with her conclusions, which shock him to his core.

_I can only conclude that if the dark shapes don't symbolize Sierra's state of mine before intake, they must represent an extreme sense of anxiety and rage associated with Topher Brink._

"I'm not the bad man," Topher breathes, anxious and unsure, but determined to prove his own innocence. He helps people, that's what he does, day in and day out. These people, they were destroyed and discarded and he put them back together again. Priya was a schizophrenic. Sierra is a well-adjusted doll who may just be experiencing some sort of real human emotion, though he doesn't want to think about the reports that he'll have to fill out if it turns out to be true.

He helps people. He's not the bad man.

He begins a frantic search, looking closer and relieved when it all turns out to be true, though the truth is far more sinister than even the ridiculous plot of _Tentacles_, which he and Jenny used to watch as children. It was the perfect B-Movie companion to the _Night of the Lepus_ marathons that would make up every Easter.

He calls Boyd over, pointing out ions and chlorine receptors and he's filled with frantic, nervous energy, and it takes him a moment to realize that Boyd isn't with him, and he says, finally declaratively, that Sierra was crazy because of the medications.

Adelle finds out for that, and she leaves with Boyd to do whatever management-y thing they do when these things happen. Though, he truly doubts that anything quite like this has happened before. It may be a Big Government Conspiracy, but it's mostly a benevolent one. Except when it isn't. It's not like the 21st century slave trade or anything.

However, in the silence of his room, he's struck with the memory of something Priya said to him back when he thought she was crazy and dressed in a sheet that hung off her body and made her look like a much hotter version of Casper the Friendly Ghost.

_"Help me, help me please. There are men with guns and they're filling me with poison to make me crazy."_

He wonders how much of this is true. He's seen many things in his years at the Dollhouse, but nothing like this. Never guns, never forced, only sometimes people of questionable morals, like Caroline, being coerced, lightly by a pleasantly British hand.

It's only five years, after all.

When he gets the phone call to come to DeWitt's office, he's expecting an all clear and a pat on the back for a job well done. Instead he sees the brandy in her hand and that the bottle is half empty. She slurs through a bunch of orders, all intelligible and cutting and Topher feels a churning helplessness eating at the pit of his stomach.

"You can't let them do this," Topher says after a moment when she's pouring herself another glass and the world is spinning madly around him.

"They're not going to do it, we are. And when I say that we don't have a choice, know that I mean it," Adelle snaps, drinking forcefully and spitting each word as if a part of herself is dying on every syllable.

"Aren't we supposed to care for these people? Dr. Saunders never would have allowed –"

"Which Doctor Saunders would that be?" Adelle interrupts, cutting and forceful. He's seen this side of her multiple times, but never toward him. It's scary and unpleasant and he wonders if this is what happens when you try to make a stand against her.

He gives her a look that makes it clear that he considers this to be below the belt, but she doesn't care and she simply raises an eyebrow in response.

"The avuncular physician so brutally cut down not five feet from where you were standing, or to the last woman you gave a permanent imprint? The other wounded flower you restored by offering a new life who apparently found you so unbearable she had to flee the city. Is it that one?"

Her words cut like diamonds, harsh and quick and he sits down from the weight of all that she isn't saying. Topher helps people; it's the one thing that sets him apart from the other geniuses involved in Big Government Conspiracies. He isn't evil.

He thinks of Jenny, in that room, moments before he arranges her escape. Maybe their parents were right – maybe they were doing the work of the greater good and he was arrogant and stubborn. "How can you expect me to do this?"

Adelle sighs into her glass and meets his gaze with her own, steady and unwavering and fully convinced of her course of action. She's always been a decisive one, and when she's set on something, there is no convincing her otherwise. "You'll do it because you must. The cold reality is that everyone here was chosen because their morals have been compromised in some way. Everyone except you."

He looks up, shocked and unsure of what she's saying, as she stalks closer and cups his cheek. He was chosen because he hadn't been compromised? Was this some kind of test?

He doesn't wait long for an answer.

She looks at him like a mother toward a child, and he shivers under the weight of her gaze. "You, Topher, were chosen because you had no morals. You've always thought of people as playthings. This is not a judgment. You've always taken good care of your toys, but you're simply going to have to let this one go."

He feels like he's ten and sucker punched by one of the eighteen year old seniors in his high school who called him a nerd and beat him up because he ruined yet another curve. Weak and helpless and pathetic and certain that his next bold move will do nothing to save himself from this. His die has been cast by a woman that he once looked at like a sort of mother figure, after his own turned her back on him after Jenny.

However, he's not ten anymore, and perhaps there is something that he can do to remedy the situation that he's currently in. Though, he's not sure what, exactly, that might be at the moment.

He comes into the dining room, where Victor and Sierra are reading a book and holding hands, pure and innocent love and she asks him to come with her. They hold hands for a moment, then two, and Topher turns to break them up, telling them that he can't come with her.

So Victor promises to wait right there for Sierra to return, as if this is a common thing for the two of them.

Topher's broken and unsure and staring at Victor who is looking at him with eyes so trusting, and escorts Sierra up the stairs, as the guilt rises in his throat. He doesn't say anything, just acts as if this is normal, though his eyes are slightly blurred with unshed tears.

Priya's first words to him, back before he knew the truth and she was a crazy girl in need of his help and stringing dirty hair between her fingers like a lifeline, were, "He's a liar." He'd denied it at the time, but Topher's now struck with the prescience of it all. He is lying, just not to her, but to Victor and DeWitt and possibly himself.

But as he stares at Sierra in the chair and writhing as the pulsing lights send a spirit back into her body, he remembers her voice, quiet and pained, whispering that she was a prisoner. He agrees with the assessment, now, and he has a means to change it, so he does, secretly and willing to take the blame for it all, should he actually be caught.

She might have been a caged bird singing a song no one understands, but he can allow her to fly free.

~*~

He gets the phone call, frantic and freaked, a shadow of the bitter, confident woman he'd sent loose on the world only an hour ago. He drives like a bat out of hell, eager to get there and do what needs to be done. This was unexpected, though, really, when Topher thinks about it all logically, there was only one true way that this would pan out.

"Priya," Topher calls, the name foreign on his tongue and filled with the promise of wicked words spoken in many tongues. It's easy to understand why Nolan was attracted to her, even in their brief moments together, he felt something come alive, but he never, _ever_, would do something like this.

He repeats the name, quiet and then loud, but always unsure.

After a while, he takes a step forward, then two, and finds her in a closet, blood on her hands, which he takes in his, staining his flesh in the same red hue, appropriate for their shared actions that have led to this result. Frantic and wide-eyed, he tells her that they need to run, now, before it's too late.

She responds in sobs and shakes, a shell of the girl he saw a few hours ago.

The door opens and she tenses up, and he lets out a sigh of relief when he hears Boyd come into the room. Boyd, at least, agreed that this was wrong, and he immediately takes charge of the situation, ordering Priya to pack a bag for warm weather.

He expects that he'll be joining her, and figures that being marooned on a remote island with Priya isn't the worst way to get over all that has happened. Victor will get over it.

Maybe.

But then Boyd hands him heavy gloves and begins to talk about sulfuric acid in the trunk and Topher knows that he's run away from his thoughts. Boyd says something about consequences and Topher blanches under the weight of the word – he's spent his whole life avoiding them, and now they're all coming back to haunt him.

They take the body to the tub and drop it in, and Boyd instructs him on what happens next, while Priya is moving about the house like a zombie, trying to remember a life that she lived in her body, while she wasn't present.

"Boyd, I can't do it," Topher pleads, begging for Boyd to take control and just _do this for him_, Adelle would, Ivy would, but it appears Boyd is the exception to that rule.

"Topher, you're a doctor, you know how to dissect a body," Boyd replies, standing over him like his father would have after a childish failing, like when he broke the window playing fetch with their dog.

Boyd's not going to do it for him.

He gives orders and suggestions about femoral arteries and how to make it easier to cut up a body while the fluids drain away into nothingness.

Priya told him once, _before_, that they were dissolving her from the inside out, and he finds it poignant and slightly poetic, that he's doing just that to Nolan, now.

He's covered in blood and breathing hard, the stench of death is heavy in the small room, but the work is mostly done now, as he stares up at Boyd with knowing eyes that are heavy with guilt.

"I was just trying to help her. Now she's ruined," Topher states like it's a foregone conclusion and he feels the guilt eat at his stomach, knowing that he's destroyed another person he was trying to save.

"You had a moral dilemma. Your first. It did not go well," Boyd replies as an attempt to salve some of his guilt, though Topher knows that these are the sins that one can never fully atone for, even if he did believe in god or something like it.

"Priya does not belong in the Dollhouse," Topher states, though it comes out more like a plea. He came here to save her, and now he's the one signing her up for four more years of hell.

"She does now," Boyd replies and Topher catches a hint of words unspoken in his tone. Perhaps this is a means of protection, though Topher wonders what, exactly, from, and maybe Boyd is actually doing the right thing.

The three of them make their way back to the Dollhouse in silence, while Topher resists the urge to ask Boyd what, exactly, the Goose is, or whom, and how he knows so many things a former cop should never know. They may have dealt with the aftermath together, but they both have their secrets and the lies they tell themselves to get through the day.

Adelle's words come back to haunt him, silent whispers meant to reassure, but only serve to twist the knife further as he stares Priya, whose private haunts are far more oppressive than he can possibly imagine.

_ If you have actually managed to develop pangs of conscience, in this matter, you can rest assured that in this matter, you had no choice._

She's right, he didn't, but looking at her now, he wishes he did.

Priya's standing in his lab now, blonde hair and tanned skin with wide eyes and a questioning gaze. "I don't know what's real. Yesterday I'd lost my mind, trapped in my nightmare. Then you bring me here, wake me up, and I'm sane again. You tell me it's been a year, all the things I'd been made to do. And I kill a man. I woke up a nightmare only to live in one. You were supposed to help me."

The words burn into him and he blanches under the force of it all. "I thought I was. I was fooled, I'm so sorry. If there was anything I could do to make it better –"

"Do you have any beer?" She interrupts, and Topher's struck by how much she looks like Kat in that moment, when they were celebrating his birthday and laughing and giggling and far freer than they are now.

He hands her a beer and they both take a big swig, the bitter liquid taking some of the edge off of it all.

"Am I allowed to have beer in here, or is this my last one?"

"No, you're allowed, on uh… special occasions," Topher supplies awkwardly, not sure how to handle his birthday with all that he knows. Perhaps next year he'll celebrate with Victor – there's no way that he would sleep with him. He likes to keep his experiments all science-related, whereas in love, he's very straight and narrow.

"And are we happy here?" Priya asks and Topher isn't sure how to answer, when yesterday it would have been the easiest question in the world.

"I – you – most of you… I have no idea," he says finally, stammering under her gaze.

She looks out over the balcony, and Topher catches the way that her posture changes, and that her eyes are lighting up. Priya looks more alive than she has since the first moment she came out of the chair, relieved and shocked that she was no longer crazy. "That's him! What's his name?"

He looks down, catching Victor slouching against the marble, realizing that he _hasn't_ left his spot all day. "Victor."

"I love him. Is that real?"

Topher stares at her for a moment, wondering how to respond. He's spent a year ignoring the signs, the man reactions, and protecting the two of them from anyone thinking that it's anything more than the interactions that the rest of the dolls have.

Finally, Topher admits, "Yes. Yes, it's real. He loves you back."

She accepts his words without question, which makes Topher even more uncomfortable than a litany of things that he couldn't answer would.

She slides back into the chair and turns toward him. "I wished Nolan dead, I did, I thought about it all the time when I was locked up in that horrible place."

"I should never have let you go there," Topher admits, which scares him. He's used to being right all the time, and lately he's been all wrong.

"I would have anyway. I wanted to confront him. I don't know what I thought. But, if you wake me up again, put me back to where I was a year ago, skip this day or ignore it or delete it or whatever. I never want this back, okay."

Her words cut into him, because this is exactly what he doesn't want to do, for a number of reasons, but all Topher can manage to say is, "Okay."

She meets his gaze as he lowers her into position, and he shifts under the weight of it. "This secret we have. Can you keep it?"

"I can keep it," he admits, then adds, "But I don't know if I can live with it."

"I know I can't. But I don't have to," Priya says finally and smiles the secret smile of two comrades coming back from battle, and he steps backward, to do what he must.

He watches Priya leave her body and places his hand over his mouth, forcing him to swallow the truth that threatens to come out as she gets wiped and becomes Sierra again. Topher doesn't take the day away from her; he can't, because she needs to remember Victor. It's true and it's real and while everything is terrible, this wasn't and he won't give her what she wants, not this time.

Even if it makes him the bad man after all.


End file.
